Selective facts
Sir: Matt Ridley’s article on Darwin’s vision (‘Natural selection explains everything’, 10 January) omits one simple but very important fact, namely that Darwin did not originate natural selection. How do we know?
Simple — both he and Alfred Russel Wallace gave the credit to Patrick Matthew and Charles Wells. Darwin even described Matthew’s version of natural selection as ‘precisely’ the same as his own, which appeared some 20 years later. These facts will doubtless be conveniently lost in this year’s Darwinfest of hype.
Dr Milton Wainwright
University of Sheffield
Sir: Matt Ridley’s remark that ‘technology also experiences progress and “arms races” through the world’ does not support his idea that the ‘internet is increasingly Darwinian’, let alone that Darwinism explains everything. Darwinism explains evolution by saying what happens to inherited characteristics. But culture, science and economics are acquired, not inherited. The internet develops through diversity, learning and adaptation. To use a more modern metaphor, genetic evolution is digital while culture is analogue.
John Howkins
London W1
Sophisticated, moi?
Sir: Paul Johnson (And another thing, 10 January) writes that, ‘In 1947 C.S. Lewis told me…’ He goes on to say, ‘The surest sign of a failure in sophistication is name-dropping.’
Michael Grosvenor Myer
Cambridge
Not quite critic
Sir: I assume your distinguished opera critic was given a free pair of prime stalls seats (cost £360), presumably so that he could review the performance of Turandot for your publication (Arts, 10 January). Because he did not like Elizabeth Connell (the last-minute replacement in the eponymous role, much lauded by several of the national broadsheets) and detected oncoming hoarseness in the tenor, Michael Tanner decided not to stay for Act III. How can a critic write any review of this opera without experiencing how the tenor meets the challenge (and expectation) of ‘Nessun Dorma’, the death of Liù (some of Puccini’s most beautiful and moving music) and the soaring challenges for the two main singers that climax this great work? How can anyone interested in opera not want to stay to the end of this work? Mr Tanner’s feeble joke about going one better than the composer (who did not finish Act III) does not make up for this irresponsible — and I would have thought unprofessional — attitude. All the performances of Turandot are sold out, so your critic’s tickets could have brought a much-needed £360 to Covent Garden’s coffers. I suggest he (or you) refund the Royal Opera for his waste of largely public money and invite him and your other critics to sit through the whole of any performance for which they have been given review tickets. Isn’t that their job? Or is it true what they say about critics?
Michael Varcoe-Cocks
London W6
Talking cold turkey
Sir: As Theodore Dalrymple says, the objective signs of heroin withdrawal are modest compared to alcohol (10 January); but the (subjective) symptoms are more severe. For more than 25 years I have been responsible for an alcohol and drug detoxification centre which uses very little medication. People withdrawing from heroin stay half as long as those withdrawing from alcohol. Methadone and buprenorphine treatment of heroin dependence has been endorsed by the World Health Organisation, UNAIDS and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. There is increasing evidence that the benefits of methadone treatment in prisons are similar to the benefits from this treatment in the community. Methadone treatment commenced in prison and continued in the community also reduces recidivism.
Doctors should try to reduce the discomfort of withdrawal. While working in prisons, doctors must be mindful that prisoners are sent to jail as, and not for, punishment.
Dr Alex Wodak
St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, Australia
ID charade
Sir: In response to Meg Hillier’s wholly unconvincing letter (10 January), may I focus on one point in particular? If the cards are to be ‘entirely voluntary’, does that mean there is no truth in reports that the provision of a UK passport will be conditional on the production of an ID card? This outrageous practice would effectively make ID cards mandatory for large numbers of the very people who would reject them, given a free choice.
Rebecca Smith
Walterstone, Herefordshire
Hot tips
Sir: I can add a couple of tips to Robert Gore-Langton’s guide (‘Sellotape and string pants’, 10 January) to keeping warm on the cheap. They stem from having been an evacuee during the bitterly cold winter of 1939–40. First, don’t bother washing, except perhaps your hands and face. It involves being naked and wet at the same time, and it isn’t very important. Second, when you go to bed, leave your clothes within reach. Then you can get dressed before getting out of bed in the morning.
Lisl Klein
London W2
Missing the boat
Sir: Of course unicorns existed (Books, 10 January). But as everyone who has read C.S. Lewis’s poem ‘The Late Passenger’ knows, they arrived too late to get on the Ark.
Virginia Price Evans
Whitland, Carmarthenshire
Mud sticks
Sir: Charles Moore alleges (The Spectator’s Notes, 20–27 December) that there is a police campaign to target muddy 4x4s after lunch. I can assure you that Devon and Cornwall Police do not have, and never have had, a campaign targeting 4×4 drivers in muddy vehicles. In fact the story he refers to comes from an email circulating around the internet community that was inaccurate. The vehicle in question was stopped by the police, but only the driver was breathalysed and he certainly was not targeted because he was driving a 4×4.
Devon and Cornwall work closely with the Land Owners’ Association and the local rural community. We have the largest number of firearms holders in the country and have a positive relationship with the shooting fraternity. On the wider point Charles Moore raises, the police are trying hard to cut down on bureaucracy, and to restore common sense to policing. Stories about how this isn’t the case will always abound but at least we can try to dispel some myths.
Paul Netherton
Assistant Chief Constable, Devon and Cornwall Police, Exeter
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